Senator Alan Peter Cayetano may have overreacted when he asked the media to be fair in reporting about drug-related killings because no less than Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald dela Rosa said there has been more than a thousand casualties in the government’s fight against illegal drugs.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) on Tuesday (August 23) scored Cayetano for insinuating the media was exaggerating the number of casualties in the Duterte administration’s war against drugs during the remarks he made at the Senate hearing on drug-related killings.
In a statement, NUJP said Dela Rosa effectively quashed Cayetano’s allegation about the media playing up the number of drug-related deaths because by his own admission, 665 had been killed in police operations from July 1 to August 15, while 899 others are “under investigation,” as they were executed vigilante-style.
Dela Rosa said the death toll in the anti-drug war had risen to 1,779 from July 1 to August 18.
“Ironically, Cayetano’s allegations that media have been playing loose with the numbers have been dispelled by no less than PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa who presented statistics showing that, if media have erred in counting the cost of the drug war, it is by being on the low and not, going by what the good senator would like to insinuate, on the high, side,” NUJP said.
On Cayetano’s allegation that the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN were stoking public anger over the drug-related killings by highlighting the number of casualties, NUJP wondered if the senator would rather that the media look the other way.
“What would Mr. Cayetano have the media do, play blind as the bodies pile up and go along with the canard to declare all who have died, including the innocent — and yes, there have been innocents — guilty as alleged and, thus, deserving of their fate sans due process as our laws and the very principle of rule of law that this administration wishes, and rightly so, to restore?” the group said.
NUJP said Cayetano’s allegations about unfair reporting by the media put reporters’ lives in danger since they could become targets by those behind drug-related killings.
While the group said it is one with the senator in hoping to rid the country of crime and drugs, it said he needs to be called out “when his zeal drives him to spout careless and baseless accusations that endanger not only us but others as well.”
“As he himself said in his remarks at the hearing, good intentions do pave the road to hell,” NUJP said of Cayetano.
The post Pahiya ka boy! NUJP says PNP numbers show Alan Cayetano is wrong in dissing media’s kill list appeared first on Politiko.